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BizTalk Server 2006 R2, the latest release of BizTalk Server, features service enablement with broad support of WS* protocols through its WCF adapters, support for integration with the enterprise edge via Microsoft BizTalk RFID, and support for integrating business partners though EDI and AS2. These new features and capabilities extend and enhance an already robust product and make BizTalk Server an even more cost-effective platform for Business to Business Integration for RFID-enabled solutions. The following new components and enhancements are included with BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

EDI and AS2 Support

EDI

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is one of the most prevalent means by which business entities exchange data electronically. EDI usage entails message syntax and standards (including ANSI X12 and UN/EDIFACT), messaging protocol, and transports. The following are characteristics of EDI messaging:

EDI messaging protocols help ensure that data always arrives as expected, and that corrupted or incorrect data is automatically detected and reported.

EDI mechanisms usually specify data aggregation schemes (batching).

Users often customize EDI document definitions by implementing a subset or a specific implementation of an EDI guideline.

BizTalk Server 2006 processes EDI messages using receive and send pipelines specific to EDI that can parse and serialize EDI messages. This section describes the architecture of EDI solutions on BizTalk Server 2006 R2, including specifics of receive-side and send-side processing, message validation, and status reporting.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006: Enhanced EDI and AS2 performs the following EDI processing:

- Receive Functionality

  • Parses the EDI interchange, processing batched transaction if configured

  • Performs HIPAA document splitting

  • Validates the message

  • Generates the acknowledgment or acknowledgments

  • Receives EDIINT/AS2 encoded messages over an HTTP/HTTPS transport

  • Reassembles the interchange if the batch is to be preserved

- Send Functionality

  • Serializes the EDI interchange, batching transaction sets if configured

  • Validates the message to be sent

  • Sends EDIINT/AS2 encoded messages over an HTTP/HTTPS transport

  • Processes a received acknowledgment or acknowledgments to the message

- Other Functionality

  • Provides the capability to set processing properties for parties engaging in EDI document exchange and AS2 document transport

  • Provides a comprehensive status of EDI document exchange transactions through a list of EDI interchanges and their correlated acknowledgments

  • Provides the capability to validate schemas, validate instances, and generate instances at design time

  • Enables migration of BizTalk Server (BTS) 2004 XSD ‘Attributes’ in BTS 2004 XSD schemas (to ‘Elements’), BTS 2004 .xml, and BTS 2004 port-based party properties

AS2

EDI over the Internet (EDIINT) is an alternative to EDI using value-added networks (VANs). The use of the Internet for data exchange, instead of direct point-to-point connections, reduces costs, increases flexibility and efficiency, and has advantages in terms of redundancy and scalability.

To implement EDIINT, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 supports AS2 (Applicability Statement 2). AS2 is a specification that helps enables transport of business data over the Internet in a confidential, safe, and reliable manner. BizTalk Server 2006 R2 uses AS2-defined methods to send, receive, encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify messages between partners using HTTP over the Internet. BizTalk Server helps ensure the security of messages through the use of encryption keys, digital signatures, certificates, and non-repudiation.

AS2 uses the HTTP POST operation to send EDI, XML, or other business data. AS2 is not restricted to sending EDI data. The Request-URI identifies a process to be used to unpack and handle message data. A message disposition notification (MDN) is returned either in the HTTP response message body or by a new HTTP POST operation to a URL for the original sender.

Microsoft BizTalk RFID

Microsoft BizTalk RFID (radio frequency identification) is an innovative RFID platform, designed to significantly reduce the complexity in development and deployment of RFID-based solutions. Microsoft BizTalk RFID supports the broadest range of RFID hardware devices in the market today, providing the enterprise customer with an unprecedented choice of RFID hardware. The platform enables businesses to easily create, deploy, manage, and integrate their existing business processes and ERP applications with RFID technology.

RFID is revolutionizing the way organizations around the world track the location and movement of goods and assets. RFID technology uses inexpensive wireless RFID chips or tags that report their location to nearby scanners. Items with RFID tags can be easily tracked from a supplier’s factory floor to the retailer’s store shelves, providing an unprecedented level of visibility of goods in the supply chain. RFID is also applicable in reducing out-of-stock levels in stores, efficiently managing inventory in distribution centers and managing asset tracking.

Microsoft BizTalk RFID is an innovative software platform that works with and complements the strong suite of Microsoft enterprise products, such as Windows Server, Windows XP, SQL Server 2005, BizTalk Server 2006, Visual Studio 2005, and Microsoft Dynamics.

Key Benefits

  • Uniform management and configuration of heterogeneous RFID devices, via the Device Service Provider Interface

  • Operational simplicity

  • Innovative process architecture that decouples design time and deployment time activities

  • Reliable and fast event processing engine that supports using business rules or custom .NET components

  • Synchronous and asynchronous communication with RFID devices

  • Extensible development platform for creating custom event handlers

  • Part of the Windows Server System

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Adapters

The BizTalk adapters allow Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 to communicate with WCF-based applications and to service enable the BizTalk endpoints using the latest WS-* standards.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 contains the following WCF adapters and wizards:

  • The WCF-WSHttp adapter provides the WS-* standards support over the HTTP transport. WCF-WSHttp adapter implements the following specifications: WS-Transaction for the transactional interactions between external applications and the MessageBox database, WS-Security for message security and authentication. The transport is HTTP or HTTPS, and message encoding is a Text or Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) encoding.

  • The WCF-BasicHttp adapter adapter is able to communicate with ASMX-based Web services and clients and other services that conform to the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1. The transport is HTTP or HTTPS, and message encoding is a Text or Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) encoding.

  • The WCF-NetTcp adapter provides the WS-* standards support over the TCP transport. WCF-NetTcp adapter provides efficient communication in a WCF-to-WCF environment. WCF-NetTcp adapter implements the following specifications: WS-Transaction for the transactional interactions between external applications and the MessageBox database, WS-Security for message security and authentication. The transport is TCP, and message encoding a binary encoding.

  • The WCF-NetMsmq adapter provides support for durable asynchronous messaging by leveraging Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) as a transport and enables support for loosely coupled applications, failure isolation, load leveling, and disconnected operations.

  • The WCF-NetNamedPipe adapter provides secure, optimized for on-machine cross process communication. WCF-NamedPipe adapter uses transport security for transfer security, named pipes for message delivery, and binary message encoding.

  • The WCF-Custom adapter enables the use of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) extensibility features. The adapter allows users to select and configure a WCF binding, behavior, and behavior extensions for the receive location and send port.

  • The WCF-CustomIsolated adapter enables the use of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) extensibility features over the HTTP transport. The adapter allows users to select and configure a WCF binding, behavior, and behavior extensions for the receive location running in an isolated host.

  • The BizTalk WCF Service Publishing Wizard can be used to create and publish BizTalk orchestrations as WCF services, and to publish schemas as WCF services, as well as publish metadata only endpoints in IIS.

  • The BizTalk WCF Service Consuming Wizard can be used to generate the BizTalk artifacts, such as BizTalk orchestrations and types as well as bindings file for send port creation, to consume a WCF service based on the metadata document of the WCF service.

Microsoft WCF Line-of-Business (LOB) Adapter SDK

Microsoft has created a Software Development Kit (SDK) to enable a consistent and repeatable way to build Line-of-Business (LOB) Adapters. Based on Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), this SDK provides a common metadata object model to expose target system metadata, for adapter consumers to browse, search, and retrieve WCF contracts from the adapter.

The same adapter developed using the WCF LOB Adapter SDK can be reused in multiple .NET applications including Custom .NET Applications, BizTalk Server 2006 R2, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services. The SDK does not ship in the box with BizTalk but can be downloaded from here.

BizTalk Adapter Pack

The BizTalk Adapter Pack includes WCF-based adapters for SAP, Siebel, and the Oracle database. These adapters, created using the WCF Line-of-Business (LOB) Adapter SDK, can be used by any .NET Framework application not just by BizTalk Server. The BizTalk Adapter Pack ships with BizTalk Server 2006 R2 after March 1, 2008 and is available separately for users of previous versions. 

BAM Interceptors for WF and WCF

In BizTalk Server 2006, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is a collection of tools, APIs, and services that allow you to manage aggregations, alerts, and profiles, and to instrument automated processes to send events to monitor relevant business metrics. Together, these provide end-to-end visibility into a business process and enable you to stay abreast of business process status and results.

BAM Interceptors extend this same functionality into the world of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Framework (WCF) and other runtimes. By using the BAM Interceptors, you can track your business processes without recompiling your WF or WCF solution — integration is done through a configuration file.

By using the WF or WCF BAM Interceptor in your project, you can:

  • Use the BAM portal to view information about the business processes running in your WF or WCF application.

  • Use BAM functionality without adding additional code to your application.

  • Deploy your solution using familiar BizTalk Server tools and utilities.

  • Take advantage of your existing BizTalk Server environment for existing and new WF and WCF applications.

Miscellaneous Enhancements

BAM Add-in for Excel

  • BAM Add-in for Excel (XLA) has been updated to support Microsoft Office Excel 2007. BAM XLA continues to support Office Excel 2003.

Enterprise Single Sign-On 4.0

  • Management Agent for MIIS

    The Management Agent for MIIS further simplifies management of credential mappings in the SSO database. Mappings can be created or deleted in SSO using Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS). Enterprise SSO can also receive password changes from MIIS through this management agent.

  • Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in

    In Enterprise SSO Administration console, SSO administrators can view status and manage SSO servers remotely using the new MMC snap-in.

  • Mapping Wizard for Affiliate Applications

    The Mapping Wizard for Affiliate Applications allows SSO administrators to create mappings using a wizard when the external account name is based on the Windows domain account. Additionally, the initial password can also be specified when creating the mapping for a user.

  • Direct Password Sync from Windows

    Enabling this option in an Affiliate Application will allow EntSSO services to sync the password in the SSO database directly. The password change from Windows is received from either Microsoft Password Change Notification Service (PCNS) or Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS). One example where this is useful is in cases where a Windows domain account to a Windows domain account mapping is created in the SSO database.

  • Password Filtering

    For single sign-on and password sync adapter scenarios, if a filter is defined, then the filtered password is returned to the caller or to the password sync adapter. Basic filtering includes options for upper case and lower case, truncation, and removing special characters. Advanced filtering includes options for substituting characters and for the ability to pad a character in the front or end.

  • Backward compatibility and upgrade

    Enterprise SSO 4.0 can upgrade prior versions of Enterprise SSO. This is done by upgrading the Master Secret Server which will also upgrade the SSO database. An upgraded Master Secret Server and SSO database can work with all prior versions of Enterprise SSO Servers.

  • Active Directory Marker

    During configuration, Enterprise SSO registers the service in Active Directory to help keep track of SSO servers available in your environment.

  • IPv6 support

    Enterprise SSO is supported in an IPv6 environment.

Support for Microsoft Update

  • BizTalk Server 2006 R2 includes support for Microsoft Update. Microsoft Update is a service from Microsoft that delivers updates for Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft programs including BizTalk Server 2006 R2. For more information, see the Microsoft Update Web site. 

Support for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)

  • BizTalk Server 2006 R2 supports the use of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS).

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